


Birthing Belladonna

by AplusIsRoman



Series: Ivyverse [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Children of the Dark AU, Dick Grayson is Not Nightwing, Dick Grayson is Not Robin, Dick Grayson-centric, Found Family, Gen, Gotham City - Freeform, Gotham City Police Department, Ivyverse, Origin Story, Pre-Found Family, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death, Villains, poison ivy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22306840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AplusIsRoman/pseuds/AplusIsRoman
Summary: Dick Grayson is dead... maybe. There's definitely something wrong with him, that's for sure. And he's pretty sure there's only one person in the whole world who can help him.Too bad she's stuck in Arkham Asylum.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Harleen Quinzel, Dick Grayson & Pamela Isley, Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Pamela Isley & Harleen Quinzel, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Ivyverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605613
Comments: 10
Kudos: 163





	Birthing Belladonna

Dick held his breath, waiting for the men’s footsteps to pass by. He ducked behind them, silent as a mouse, and jumped through the doorway before it closed and locked itself again. There was something important in here to those men--those scientists--and Dick was going to figure out what it was. He tip-toed to peer into the bigger crates, his nine-year-old self too small to just quite reach. The lights in the room dimmed, and Dick frowned. Why were all the shelves empty? That couldn’t be right. There was something important in here. There had to be.

A humming sound came from behind Dick, around a corner of the lab Dick had yet to see. He peeked from behind a bunch of woefully barren shelves to see a tiny claw-machine being remote-controlled. It held a small vial of clear liquid, and the invisible pilot held the liquid aloft over a tiny houseplant. Dick leaned forward, frowning. Why was no one here to watch this? Why--

The shelves creaked and something on top that Dick couldn’t see came crashing down, dousing him and the little experiment before him in something green and gooey. The claw fizzed and sparked, the hand dropping the entire vial onto the plant. There was a moment of silence, and then the liquid on the plant began to smoke.

“Uh-oh,” Dick gulped.

\---

“Oh my god. Is he dead?”

“How the hell did a kid get past security?!”

“Oh my god, he’s dead. We killed a kid.”

“Woah, woah, no, we didn’t kill him! We evacuated the room! If I end up going to jail for this--”

“Oh no, oh no, oh no--”

“Breathe, man, breathe! We got to think of a way out of this! The whole room has a giant sooty hole in it now, you think that’s enough the cops will think it was a bomb? We could tell them it was planted by a competitor!”

“...”

“...I really don’t like how quiet you just got.”

“...I think I’ve seen this kid before, on the news.”

“Aw, hell, if he’s famous then we’re screwed.”

“A CHILD HAS DIED!”

\---

Dick awoke inside a bag. He felt oddly calm. He could… feel was the best word for it, outside the bag. When he concentrated on that feeling, the smell of freshly-cut grass flooded his mind along with what could only be tiny whispers. They weren’t full sentences but emotions, simple sensations, portrayed with as much clarity as possible using what Dick realized weren’t even words.

Dick wanted out of the bag. The air was getting clammy and he felt claustrophobic as the calm from his awakening began to fade. His heart pounded. The sensation outside of the bag responded like it was another being, alive and willing to help him. He could feel the sensation curling around him and the bag began to unzipper from the outside. Dick sat up, taking in a breath of fresh air.

The long, untrimmed blades of grass relaxed from where they had been tugging at the zipper slider. Dick reached a tentative hand out to them and, upon making direct contact, felt the soft buzz he recognized from before.

He had been… _talking_ to the grass. This was new. He figured his mother did not raise him without manners, so he mentally projected his thanks as best he could to the plants. They were simple things, not capable of complex thought--but they recognized the message as a positive one, and the humming whisper in Dick’s head made him smile. It was like an animal, too dumb to quite understand, but supportive all the same.

He was on the ground. The bag had been set next to a cop car, obscuring him mostly from view. Dick peeked around the corner, looking at the group that was inspecting the building. There was a hollow shell that had once been a room, debris piled around in such a manner that the blast radius was clear. There was blood and smoke all over, and Dick shivered as he recognized the room as the one he’d been inside, watching the tiny robot with the little vial.

Dick wasn’t stupid. He shouldn’t be alive. Whatever sort of reaction the chemicals had should have killed him--there was a _hole_ in the _wall_ for goodness’ sake, else Dick wouldn’t be able to see inside from out in what appeared to be the Gotham morning. And maybe Dick’s new ability to talk to grass had something to do with his survival, he didn’t know. 

One of the police officers stood near the corner of the demolished lab, interviewing a man Dick recognized as the last to have left the room before Dick snuck inside. He listened but couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying.

A hum, low and soft, joined the buzz in Dick’s head that he had begun to tune out. Dick listened to the hum, closing his eyes and concentrating. His hands shook from the thrill and nerves of not knowing what he was doing, what he was allowing to happen to him. Dick could _feel_ the group of dandelions by the hole in the wall lean towards the conversation. They couldn’t understand what they were hearing, but they sent it along in a game of telephone through clover and grass back to Dick, who could now hear perfectly everything that was being said. He opened his eyes to watch, but didn’t sever the mental connection. 

“--to use against Poison Ivy,” the scientist was saying. “We were hoping to do something good, you know. Help the city.”

The man gave a nervous laugh as he gestured to the wreckage around him. “I guess we can’t all be Batman.” 

The officer nodded, all apathetic and professional. “And the boy? You don’t know who he is?”

“No idea, sir.” The scientist swallowed and looked down at his feet, his voice grave. “I only wish…” 

Dick felt himself getting tired, so he cut off the mental tie and crept to his feet. Now was as good a time as any to get away. He needed to think.

It was laughably easy to sneak off-grounds once he’d already snuck in. In fifteen minutes Dick was back to the main street, putting his head down and walking quickly, a clear indication to everyone around him that he wanted to be left alone. 

Dick’s clothes were falling apart. He frowned, putting his hand in his pocket only for the movement to send the entire corner of his jacket crumbling into ashes. People sent him wide-eyed looks and moved to cross the street. Dick glanced at his reflection in a window.

He looked like a house fire victim. His skin was covered in soot and ash, and his mother would weep were she alive to see the state of his hair. The more Dick moved, the more his clothes fell apart. (There was blood on them, too. A lot of blood. Dick didn’t want to think about it, but once he noticed it, he couldn’t get the lingering smell of copper out of his head.)

Dick ducked behind a building he knew had a Goodwill donation box. It was easy enough to break into the thing, stealing oddly-fitting but clean clothes and changing behind a dumpster, sneaking glances over the side for any creeps who may have followed him into the alley. 

Now that he wasn’t at risk of running naked, he could focus on looking less like someone who lived in a warzone. Whispers pulled at his head and Dick turned to see some ivy on the wall, moving in a ripple effect like an invisible hand was brushing them, trying to direct him. He followed the ripple to a rainwater barrel that had obviously been abandoned long ago. The barrel was rusted and had what looked like bullet holes in parts, but it still held relatively clean water. Dick began scrubbing his face, using a too-small sweater from the donation bin as a washcloth. Once he looked like the average Gotham street child--nothing anyone would bat an eye at, much less approach--he stopped, looking up at the vines on the wall and thinking. 

The scientist had mentioned Poison Ivy. Dick doubted he was talking about the plant. The woman was said to be able to commune with plants, to talk to and control them. Dick had never met her, and she was locked up in Arkham Asylum since before Haly’s had ever dropped by Gotham. Dick didn’t quite know what was going on. But maybe she--like the ivy on the wall that curled towards him like the hand of a friend--would help him. 

Dick wished, not for the first or last time, that his parents were still alive. He wondered what they would have him do. 

But, if they were here, this would never have happened. Dick would never have broken into that lab in the first place, looking for clues relating to their murder. 

He took a deep, slow inhale. There was no time to ruminate on that. His body’s absence would have been noted by now. They would come looking for him. Dick refused to go back to juvie, especially not with these... new developments. 

Dick nodded once, to the vines, his mind made up. He was going to have to break into Arkham Asylum.

\---

It was with the help of some wildflowers that Dick found a hole in the fence around the asylum, and wasn’t that whole thought just something for the papers. Dick thanked them, and they seemed to understand better than the grass had, the whispers almost turning intelligible for a moment there. 

It was near evening. It had taken nearly the entire day of Dick evading cops and cameras for him to make it across the city barefoot, as he hadn’t found any shoes in the Goodwill box and his had long turned to dust, and he was exhausted. He crawled on his belly under the electrified fence, sucking in his gut to minimize the chance of getting himself painfully zapped and caught. 

There were cameras everywhere; too many to avoid. All Dick could do was hope no one was watching them as he tugged on the back entry, the one intended for inmates to use when their allotted time outdoors was at an end--but it was locked. Dick sighed and made for the windows--but those were barred. 

Dick frowned and grabbed at the bars, hoisting himself up. Moss gathered on the wall in helpful locations, forming handholds for him to use as he scaled the wall up to the roof. 

There were guards on the roof. Dick ducked behind a slight outcropping to avoid being spotted. With the sun going down, it was easier for him to avoid them--the guards, he noticed, were pointedly looking away from the glare of the setting sun--so he got on the ground and essentially wiggled just under the protective harshness of the vanishing star to his destination--a chimney, one that blessedly had no smoke rising from it. Dick held his breath when he reached it. He’d remained undetected so far, but that was mostly via staying out of their periphery. They’d have to be _really_ blind to not notice him stand up to clamber into the chimney. 

A sharp ringing erupted into the air, and for a moment, Dick was certain the jig was up.

The guards ran to the opposite side, yelling about ‘Killer Croc’ and ‘dangerous criminal’ as they raised their weapons to aim at something Dick couldn’t see. He couldn’t believe his luck! He doubted he’d get a chance like this again, so he leapt up and hopped into the chimney without a second thought. 

His feet were bleeding, he noticed as he looked down. They would probably become infected from all the grime he’d been walking through. But oddly enough, holding himself aloft in a chimney on the roof of Arkham Asylum, he didn’t think it was his top priority at the moment. He shimmied down, kicking out the smoke grate and crawling out. 

“Well gee, I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.” Dick froze at the voice, standing to face a young woman. Her hair was pulled back in a tight blonde bun, and her glasses were falling down her nose as she peered down at him critically. She wore a name tag that Dick squinted to read in the lowlight of the dusk from the windows. 

“Oh, hi Doctor Quinzel!” Dick grinned. “I must’ve gotten lost. Can you help me find the children’s ward?”

Dr. Quinzel frowned. “We don’t have a children’s ward, sugar. How did you get in here?”

Dick’s smile faltered, then turned to a sad pout--time to switch tactics. “I’m really sorry for lying, Doctor. I just--”

A well-timed sniffle and a wobbly lip made her eyes widen. “Are you okay, kiddo? You need me to call somebody?”

Dick turned dramatically away from her. “I just--Momma never talks about her family, and I found out it’s ‘cause the only one left is here somewhere, and I just--I just wanna know, is all, but I couldn’t get Momma’s permission to come during visiting hours, so I…” 

“Oh, gosh.” Dr. Quinzel bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder to scan the otherwise vacant recreational room as if someone may be secretly watching them. “Alright kiddo, I’m gonna make you a deal, alright?”

Dick nodded, giving her his full attention. 

“I’m new here, so if I pretend I’m lost, I’ll be excused from wanderin’ around where I ain’t got no business to be. I’ll getcha a few minutes with whoever it is, but I can’t let you too close and I’m not opening any doors, okay?” The woman squinted her eyes, scanning Dick for any sign of disagreement--finding none, she continued. “And I’ll only give you ten, fifteen minutes, got it? Then you’re goin’ out the back door when they unlock it for the milk delivery. I ain’t getting fired ‘cause I took pity on you, ‘kay?”

Dick was endlessly grateful for being born a performer, because there’s no way he could’ve worked all that out by himself, especially if the doctor had decided to report him. He nodded again. 

“Alright. Who you visiting?”

\---

There were three sets of doors between the outside world and Poison Ivy’s cell. As they went deeper and deeper into the Asylum with each swipe of Dr. Quinzel’s ID card, the sound of the plants began to fade completely from Dick’s head. The loss ached like a phantom limb, and Dick couldn’t stop himself from fidgeting, little nervous twitches as he fought the urge to turn and run back to where he could hear the moss and fungus, away from this sterile little hole that was too clean for anything to grow. 

The last door opened, and there behind a simple set of bars was a woman. She looked… normal. Dick wasn’t sure what he expected. Her prison clothes were worn but not dirty. Her vibrant red hair was held back by a scrunchie as she read a book Dick couldn’t see the title of. Pamela Isley set it down as Dr. Quinzel walked up.

“Hello again, Pam!” Dr. Quinzel greeted cheerfully. “This is a friend of mine. He wanted to talk to you!”

“I was under the impression that visiting hours were over,” Poison Ivy turned to face Dick. “And I don’t know who you are.” 

“Ah, well,”--was the doctor blushing? Dick couldn’t quite tell from under the makeup--“I’m just--I’m just going to play my music and let you guys talk. I’m sure our friend here will explain everything. I’ll be right over here.” 

True to her word, Dr. Quinzel walked over to the corner and put in earbuds, scrolling through her phone. This was as alone as they were going to get. 

“Who are you?” Dick turned to face Ivy, who was standing now, using her height to loom over him even with the bars between them. “Did you blackmail her into this?”

“No, I--I made up a sob story about how you’re my cousin or something and how I wanted to see you, that’s all,” Dick swallowed. “So--so I’m here.”

“She brought you here?”

“No, I got in myself.”

“You’ve been hiding out since visiting hours? I thought the guards kept track of that sort of thing.”

“I broke in,” Dick admitted. There was a pause. 

“You… broke _into_ Arkham Asylum?” Ivy’s incredulous stare seemed to bore right through him. “To see me, a murderer? What, did one of my vines kill your parents or something?”

Something flashed in the back of Dick’s mind and he pushed it back down where it came from. Now was not the time--he could think about his parents’ deaths later. “No.”

“Then why are you here?” Ivy sat back down onto her cot, but her gaze never wavered. “Who are you?”

“My--my name’s Richard Grayson.” Dick straightened his back, daring to look right back at her. “I heard you can--you talk to plants, and control them.”

A nod. It’s small, and not very encouraging, but it’s there.

“I can--I can do that too. But I don’t know how to--I can’t--”

“You can’t control it,” Ivy pursed her lips. “You don’t understand it.”

Dick felt relieved. She understood! “Yes.”

“And how, exactly, did you come to get these powers?” Her voice was critical, but not entirely disbelieving. 

“There were… these scientists,” Dick remembered the story the man gave to the police. “I think they were trying to make some sort of medicine, or something, that could… that could stop your powers. In case you ever broke out of Arkham. And I--I snuck in, and I knocked something over, and there was an explosion.”

Dick paused, because he truly wasn’t sure what happened after. “I think I died. But then I came back, and I could--I could  _ hear  _ the grass.” 

Ivy’s voice was quiet, and Dick glanced to make sure Dr. Quinzel hadn’t heard--from the way she was still relaxed in her chair, playing what may have been Candy Crush on her phone, she hadn’t. “When did this happen?”

“This morning. I had to--I had to walk here.” 

Ivy looked down at the pitiful state of Dick’s bare feet and hummed in thought. The tune was familiar and made Dick jolt from the memory--it was the hum of the grass, not communicating anything, just being--but it eased the ache in Dick’s head from not being able to hear it at all. Ivy took note of the way Dick’s whole body seemed to relax, and she nodded once. 

“You’re telling the truth,” she murmured, ending the song. Dick felt a lump in his throat when she stopped, and it took all his self-restraint to keep himself from asking her to continue. 

“I’ll help you,” she said. “But you need to do something for me first.” 

Dick looked up. “What is it?” 

“I need you to bring me a plant,” she said. “Any plant will do, but I need you to sneak it in here to where I can hear it.” 

Dick frowned. Before entering the first locked door, Dr. Quinzel had made him turn his pant pockets inside out before letting him through. It was likely that was exactly what she was checking for. (She’d also offered to give Dick some of the orderlies’ shoes, but he’d turned her down, not wanting to risk being caught in the main hallways.) 

“I can’t do anything to help you until then.” Ivy settled down on her cot, grabbing her book. Dick stood for a moment, unsure of what to do next. Ivy turned a page and glanced up at him. 

“Good luck,” she said. Then, shouting, “Harley! We’re done here!”

Dr. Quinzel jumped, removing her earbuds. “Oh, good! I think the milk order should be in soon, we’ll sneak you right on out!”

Dr. Quinzel gently lead Dick by the shoulder out the first door. “Say bye to your Auntie Pam, now!” 

Dick waved half-heartedly, and Ivy looked vaguely amused. 

“Bye, Pam,” he said, as the door shut and locked between them. 

\---

Two weeks later, Dick walked in the front door to Arkham Asylum. It was two in the afternoon, and his feet ached in the oversized shoes Dr. Quinzel had forced him to take on his way out. He showed his fake ID and signed letter from his “parents” and the guard let Ric Gray into the visiting area. 

It had taken a while to get those. A strange woman Dick didn’t know the name of had asked him to plant a bag of white powder in a specific man’s house--the man was wealthy and the security had been a bit difficult to circumvent but he managed it. Dick didn’t ask any questions, and she promised to get him the ID. It took her a few days. 

The letter came from another kid on the street named Jason. Jason didn’t make it himself, but he knew a guy who knew a guy. Dick liked the younger boy. He seemed nice, if reasonably defensive. 

A man stood in the corner of the visiting area. Dick showed him the ID and letter. 

“Sorry, kid, I can’t let you visit a high-priority patient without your parents physically present.” He didn’t sound very sorry. 

Dick couldn’t exactly do that, seeing as his parents were dead. “Sir, is Doctor Quinzel here? She knows me. I’ve come to visit my Auntie before, she knows!” 

Dick crossed his fingers that no one was going to look into the details of said visit. It wouldn’t be fair to her if Dick got Dr. Quinzel fired. And it would mean Dick would have to start over. 

“Hm,” the man scowled, but reached into his pocket to pull out a walkie-talkie. He said something to it, and a few moments later a harried Dr. Quinzel came through the door. 

“Oh, it’s you!” She blanched a little upon seeing Dick.

“So you do know the kid? And he’s allowed to see Ivy?” 

“Oh, er, yes. Totally fine. I went with him on his last visit. Nice kid,” she added, glancing down at his feet and smiling at the shoes she’d given him. 

The guard sighed, a long, drawn-out dramatic thing. “Fine. You can go back to your patient.” 

“Great, thanks!” Dr. Quinzel waved at Dick and ducked out without another word. 

“Freakin’ weirdo doctors.” Dick glanced up to the guard, who was muttering to himself. “Who the hell would be so excited to be around that damn clown?”

“So, um, sir, can I go now?” Dick prodded. 

“Yeah, sure. One of my guys will meet you outside the door to take you.” Dick gripped his papers tighter and went through the door into the hallway.

The guard who met him wasn’t very chatty, walking him down to the familiar first door in silence, then instructing him to turn out his pockets and take off his shoes and jacket. Dick obeyed, his heart pounding. He wouldn’t check anywhere else, right? Dick was just a kid, they probably didn’t think he was sneaking anything in. Right?

The guard nodded, satisfied, and let him put himself to rights again before opening the door.

Poison Ivy was waiting for them, standing at attention at the front of the locked bars of her cell. 

It made Dick smile, however nervously. She could hear it too, the high-pitched whistle that kept Dick’s head from hurting as the sound of all other plantlife faded behind the locked doors. Dick had spent the past two weeks trying to convince himself he hadn’t just made it all up, that he really could hear things no one else could.

No one else but Pamela Isley. 

“Alright, you’ve got fifteen minutes, so don’t--” The guard began, but he didn’t get to finish. Dick tossed the sesame seed he’d hidden in his fingernail into the air and Ivy reached out. The seed burst before it hit the floor and grew, grew so massive so quickly it shoved the guard out of the door. It kept growing and growing, pinning Dick against the wall. He could hear the creaking and groaning of the bars in Ivy’s cell. Dick curled up on the ground as the ridiculously large sesame plant began to break through the ceiling, sending chunks of plaster and dust falling to the floor. 

There was one long painful whine and then--and then Dick could hear the humming, the buzzing, the whispering and whistling of plants. He looked up and through the dust-choked air sunlight was streaming in. The absurdly huge plant parted and Ivy stepped through, holding a hand out to him. 

“You kept your promise,” she smiled, intimidating and powerful. Wildflowers and vines began to creep into the room, a loud cacophony of reckless joy in Dick’s head. They reached her feet in an instant and he could feel the aura they radiated. This was Poison Ivy, the one that the whole city feared, the one that could bring grown men to their knees--the one Dick had just freed. 

Dick took her hand, standing and noticing the gleam in her eye that had been missing before, when there was nothing but silence to listen to. “Please keep yours, too.”

The vines curled around Dick and Ivy’s waists, lifting them gently into the air and out of Arkham. Sirens wailed and some people were fleeing the building. Others were grabbing weapons, pointing them at the pair. Then Dick and Ivy were moving, being carried along by the fast-moving plants that rose to her command with glee. Dick gasped, watching the earth flash past under his feet. 

They were going so quickly back into the main part of the city, Dick could barely make out her next words:

“I intend to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is the start to a series of Villain!Robin AUs I'm calling Children of the Dark! I'll likely be hopping around the various timelines, but for now, enjoy the start of Ivyverse! I wonder what Ivy's going to teach young, impressionable Dick...


End file.
